Lewisham - Council Tax Arrears

Pat James made this Freedom of Information request to Lewisham Borough Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was successful.

Dear Lewisham Borough Council, under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I require that you provide or direct me to the following information from your Billing Authority Records:

1 the total number of Council Tax defaulters for the financial year 2015/2016 only;

2 the total value of outstanding Council Tax for the financial year 2015/2016 only.

Yours faithfully,

Pat James

Foi, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Sir/Madam
 
Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000
Environmental Information Regulations 2004
Reference No: 393287
 
Thank you for your recent request. Your request is being considered and
you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working
days, subject to the application of any exemptions/exceptions. Where
consideration is being given to exemptions/exceptions, the
20 working day timescale may be extended to a period considered reasonable
depending on the nature and circumstances of your request.
In such cases you will be notified and, where possible, a revised
time-scale will be indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with
your request at the earliest opportunity.
 
There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information requested where the request exceeds the statutory limit or
where disbursements exceed £10. In such cases you will be informed in
writing and your request will be suspended until we receive payment from
you or your request is modified and/or reduced.
 
Your request may require either full or partial transfer to another public
authority. You will be informed if your request is transferred. If we are
unable to provide you with the information requested we will notify you of
this together with the reason(s) why and details of how you may appeal (if
appropriate). Please note that the directorate team may contact you for
further information where we believe that the request is not significantly
clear for us to respond fully.
 
Kind Regards
 
Wendy Stevens
Corporate Information Team
 

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Customer services, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Pat James

Freedom of Information Act 2000

Reference: 393287

Thank you for your recent request for information, made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000. I have included below a copy of your request,
followed by the Council’s response under each heading.

1 the total number of Council Tax defaulters for the financial year
2015/2016 only;

2 the total value of outstanding Council Tax for the financial year
2015/2016 only.

 We confirm that the requested information above is not held.

 We consider that the specific level of data you requested cannot be
retrieved by way of a reasonable search in the relevant electronic
database, we therefore, confirm that the requested information is not
held. The Information Commissioner’s Office offers guidance on determining
if information is held or not at the following link:

[1]http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

 Since council tax is a mixture of property and personal element, the
Council don’t hold figures on the number of council tax defaulters for
2015/16. The Council only hold figures on the amount unpaid and the number
of recovery documents issued to individuals.

 The Council can confirm that £5,309,853.34 was unpaid for 2015/16.

 I hope that this information is helpful

You are free to use the information provided for your own purposes,
including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes
of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication,
requires the permission of the copyright holder. You may apply for
permission to re-use this information by submitting a request to
[2][email address]

You have a right of appeal against this response. If you wish to appeal
you must do so in writing to the Corporate Information Manager at the
following address:

Corporate Information Team

1st Floor, Lewisham Town Hall Chambers

Rushey Green

Catford

London

SE6 4RU         Or by email to:   [3][email address]

 Kind regards

 Davina

Senior Complaints Resolution Officer

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Dear Customer services, If do not hold the information requested, then you are unique among Billing authorities in failing to keep records.
Furthermore, if you do not have the information, how do you make complaints in respect of Council Tax Liability orders?

Your response is a complete absurdity which lacks credibility and honesty, therefore I demand a review into your handling of this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Pat James

Foi, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Sir/Madam
 
Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000
Reference No: 393287 - Appeal
 
We acknowledge receipt of your appeal of our response to your information
request, reference numbers 393287. We will now undertake a review of our
original response. We will endeavour to respond to you within 20 working
days.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Wendy Stevens
Senior Customer Resolutions Officer
Corporate Complaints, Casework & Information Governance Team.
 
 

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Foi, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Sir/Madam
 
Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000
Environmental Information Regulations 2004
Reference No: 393287-Appeal response
 
 
We have now considered your appeal of our original full response to you.
Your request was for information regarding Council Tax liability orders .
In summary we wish to provide you with an explanation of our response plus
provide you with some further information.
 
In our original response we stated that we do not hold figures on
individual defaulters but we do hold figures on recovery documents
issued. 
 
The problem lies in the definition of defaulter,  someone could be deemed
as a defaulter if they failed to pay any given instalment by the date due,
even though they may later bring their account up to date. There could
also be any number of defaulters within a household, but since the council
tax bills and instalments are issued to a property we would not hold
records on the numbers of individual defaulters.
 
Everyone who has ever received a reminder within a given financial year
could be classed as having defaulted, which is  why we stated that we can
define by recovery document but not by the term defaulter.  From your
statement ‘’if you do not have the information, how do you make complaints
in respect of Council Tax Liability orders?’ contained in your appeal, we
can now make the
assumption that you take defaulting to be at the stage where legal action
begins.
 
We are therefore giving the figures for the number of summon documents
issued and the number of liability orders obtained:-
 
Summons - 28,321
Liability orders - 17,944.
 
 
We hope you find this response to your review satisfactory. However, you
have a further right of appeal against this decision, which you can do so
in writing, stating your reasons to the regulating body, the Information
Commissioner's Office.
Contact details: [1]http://www.ico.gov.uk/ or 0303 123 1113 or Wycliffe
House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Wendy Stevens
Senior Customer Resolutions Officer
Corporate Complaints, Casework & Information Governance Team.
 
 
 
 
_____________________________________________
From: Foi
Sent: 10 March 2017 13:50
To: '[FOI #388864 email]'
Subject: FW: Information request (ref: 393287)
 
 
Dear Sir/Madam
 
Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000
Reference No: 393287 - Appeal
 
We acknowledge receipt of your appeal of our response to your information
request, reference numbers 393287. We will now undertake a review of our
original response. We will endeavour to respond to you within 20 working
days.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Wendy Stevens
Senior Customer Resolutions Officer
Corporate Complaints, Casework & Information Governance Team.
 
 

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